Tax Ombud Set To Unveil Taxpayers’ Rights Charter
The Office of the Tax Ombud (OTO) is set to launch a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and Obligations within the coming weeks, a move officials say will formalise the standards of fairness, transparency and accountability that taxpayers should expect from revenue authorities across Nigeria.
The Tax Ombud and Chief Executive of the OTO, Dr John Nwabueze, disclosed this at a stakeholders’ engagement in Abuja themed “Promoting Fairness, Transparency and Trust in Tax and Revenue Administration in Nigeria.” The event brought together representatives of the Nigerian Bar Association, the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and other stakeholders in the tax ecosystem.
Nwabueze said the charter would give taxpayers clarity on their rights and responsibilities while spelling out the standards their revenue authorities should be held to. “This is not simply about discussing taxation and revenue,” he said. “It is about strengthening the relationship between the taxpayer and the institutions responsible for administering public revenue.” He added that the document would be distributed through the OTO’s digital platforms and other public channels, and urged tax and revenue agencies to make it accessible to taxpayers through their offices and online portals.
Speaking with journalists after the event, Nwabueze said the charter was ready and awaiting final consultations with the Ministry of Finance and the Presidency before public release. “We’re looking at unveiling that in a very short period of time,” he said.
The Office of the Tax Ombud was created under Part VI of the Joint Revenue Board of Nigeria (Establishment) Act, 2025, one of four tax reform laws President Bola Tinubu signed on 26 June 2025 alongside the Nigeria Tax Act, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act and the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act. The four laws took effect on 1 January 2026, ushering in what officials have described as the most significant overhaul of Nigeria’s tax framework in decades, including the renaming of the Federal Inland Revenue Service to the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS).
Under the Act, the OTO functions as an independent and impartial arbiter empowered to receive, investigate and resolve complaints relating to taxes, levies, regulatory fees and charges, customs duties and excise matters. It is also mandated to monitor systemic trends in tax administration, publish quarterly reports on identified problems, and, where necessary, institute legal proceedings on behalf of an aggrieved taxpayer at no cost to that taxpayer. Nwabueze was appointed Nigeria’s first Tax Ombud on 4 November 2025, bringing over two decades of experience in tax administration and policy in Nigeria and the United States, including a stint as a technical adviser in the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The office formally began operations on 1 January 2026.
Nwabueze told the Abuja gathering that the creation of the OTO addressed a long standing gap in Nigeria’s tax dispute resolution architecture, which had historically revolved around objections to assessments, administrative review and appeals to the Tax Appeal Tribunal, routes that many ordinary taxpayers found slow, costly or difficult to navigate. He disclosed that the office had already launched its website, a toll free interactive contact centre and a case management portal to allow taxpayers to lodge complaints, track cases and receive assistance without needing to approach the courts. He said the OTO was also working with state governments to establish zonal offices, with at least three expected to begin operations within weeks, a step intended to extend taxpayer protection services beyond the Federal Capital Territory.
According to Nwabueze, Nigeria’s OTO is the ninth such institution established globally and the third in Africa, a positioning that places the country alongside jurisdictions such as South Africa, Tanzania and the United States, which run comparable independent taxpayer protection bodies.
The unveiling of the Bill of Rights comes as the federal government leans harder on tax collection to fund its budget in the wake of subsidy removal and other fiscal reforms. According to the Nigeria Revenue Service, the country collected ₦21.6 trillion in tax revenue between January and June 2026, a 49 per cent increase on the ₦14.27 trillion collected over the same period in 2025. Government projections for 2026 had put combined tax and customs revenue at roughly ₦17.85 trillion, a target that early half year figures suggest is being exceeded. That surge in collection has come with a corresponding rise in scrutiny of taxpayers, including small businesses, freelancers and online creators, some of whom now face penalties running into fines for false income declarations under the new tax administration rules.
It is against this backdrop that the OTO’s mandate takes on practical weight. Officials and professional bodies at the Abuja engagement argued that as enforcement intensifies, taxpayers need a clearly defined and easily accessible channel to challenge assessments they consider arbitrary, unfair or procedurally flawed, without having to resort immediately to litigation. Speaking on behalf of the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, his representative Olufemi Olarinde described the OTO as a new and independent institution built to address taxpayer grievances, drive systemic reforms and serve as a bridge between taxpayers and revenue authorities.
The Executive Secretary of the Joint Revenue Board, Olusegun Adesokan, has separately described the creation of the office as one of the hallmarks of the broader tax reforms, noting that it gives vulnerable and less privileged taxpayers, who may be unable to afford litigation, an accessible platform to press their complaints.
Based on Nwabueze’s public statements, the Bill of Rights and Obligations is expected to set out, on one hand, what taxpayers can expect from revenue authorities in terms of fairness, transparency and accountability, and, on the other, the responsibilities taxpayers themselves are expected to meet. Officials say the broader aim is to reduce disputes before they arise by improving mutual understanding between taxpayers and tax authorities, thereby encouraging voluntary compliance.
However, the precise contents of the charter have not yet been made public, and the OTO has not disclosed a firm date for its launch beyond describing it as imminent. It also remains to be seen how enforceable the rights set out in the document will be in practice, particularly at subnational level, where many of the disputes taxpayers face involve state and local revenue agencies rather than the federal NRS. The pace at which the promised zonal offices come on stream will also be a test of how far the OTO’s protections reach beyond Abuja and Lagos.
Nwabueze also proposed that revenue generating agencies designate liaison officers to serve as institutional points of contact with the OTO, a suggestion that stakeholders at the Abuja event broadly welcomed but which has not yet been adopted as policy by the affected agencies.
For now, the launch of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights stands as the next concrete marker in the rollout of Nigeria’s tax reform architecture, one that will be judged less by the language of the document itself than by how consistently its provisions are applied once revenue authorities put it to the test.